Last week, we talked about currencies. This week, let’s look at what the
dollar is worth. No, we don’t mean purchasing power, which is just the
inverse of consumer prices. Every day, every business that wants to remain
alive is busy cutting costs. Real prices are in free fall, and some dollar
prices too. For a recent example, look at oil.
We simply mean what is the dollar worth in terms of what other people
think of as money. Perhaps to most readers, the Brazilian real looks like
funny money. But to people in Brazil, the real is real money (no pun
intended) and the greenback is foreign. Here is a graph of the price of a
dollar in a few other currencies, and gold.
The Prices of The Dollar
That dollar sure is rising. It’s even rising a bit in gold terms (more on
this below), but its spectacular rise stands out in terms of euros, rubles,
and real.
This is a very real phenomenon, and it is hurting people all over the
globe. Their own currencies buy less, but more importantly many businesses
and banks borrow dollars. Imagine if your car or mortgage payment were rising
like some of the lines on this graph above. That is approximately how dollar
borrowers feel outside the US.
This look at credit is useful to our analysis of gold, and especially
silver. There are many other factors in the price of gold, but one is credit
expansion. Right now, people and financial institutions around the world are
under pressure to obtain dollar liquidity.
In the current market, their selling of gold and silver metal is
outweighing the buying pressure of those who are warily looking at banking
risks, Greek and other government default risks, and other reasons not to be
a holder of paper—not to be a creditor.
This week, the price of gold fell $9 and the price of silver fell 25
cents.
For a picture of the supply and demand fundamentals of gold and silver,
read on…
First, here is the graph of the metals’ prices.
The Prices of Gold and Silver
We are interested in the changing equilibrium created when some market
participants are accumulating hoards and others are dishoarding. Of course,
what makes it exciting is that speculators can (temporarily) exaggerate or
fight against the trend. The speculators are often acting on rumors,
technical analysis, or partial data about flows into or out of one corner of
the market. That kind of information can’t tell them whether the globe, on
net, is hoarding or dishoarding.
One could point out that gold does not, on net, go into or out of
anything. Yes, that is true. But it can come out of hoards and into carry
trades. That is what we study. The gold basis tells us about this dynamic.
Conventional techniques for analyzing supply and demand are
inapplicable to gold and silver, because the monetary metals have such high
inventories. In normal commodities, inventories divided by annual production
(stocks to flows) can be measured in months. The world just does not keep much
inventory in wheat or oil.
With gold and silver, stocks to flows is measured in decades. Every
ounce of those massive stockpiles is potential supply. Everyone on the planet
is potential demand. At the right price, and under the right conditions.
Looking at incremental changes in mine output or electronic manufacturing is
not helpful to predict the future prices of the metals. For an introduction
and guide to our concepts and theory, click here.
Next, this is a graph of the gold price measured in silver, otherwise
known as the gold to silver ratio. It moved up a bit this week.
The Ratio of the Gold Price to the Silver Price
For each metal, we will look at a graph of the basis and cobasis
overlaid with the price of the dollar in terms of the respective metal. It
will make it easier to provide brief commentary. The dollar will be
represented in green, the basis in blue and cobasis in red.
Here is the gold graph.
The Gold Basis and Cobasis and the Dollar Price
We said last week that this is a very interesting picture. It got even
more interesting this week. Look at the near perfect correlation between the
price of the dollar in gold (green) and the scarcity of gold indicator, the
cobasis (red).
The fundamentals of the yellow metal are hardly changing. We calculate a
fundamental price near $1,300 which is a few dollars higher than last week.
When the price changes but fundamentals do not, that’s the same as saying
that speculators—typically using leverage—are moving the price in the futures
market. In this case, they’re selling futures which pushes the price down but
pushes the cobasis up. We now have a greater backwardation than last week.
What’s more, the June contract is now within a few basis points of backwardation
as well.
You should think of backwardation as a sign of shortage or scarcity. As
the price of gold has been falling, supply of the metal has been drying up
and/or demand is increasing.
Now let’s look at silver.
The Silver Basis and Cobasis and the Dollar Price
The picture is not so bullish in silver. 25 cents is a 1.6% drop. The
cobasis blipped up but returned back to where it was. And the same for
farther contracts.
We calculate a fundamental silver price near $15. If the silver price
snaps as far below as it has been above, look for a handle with a 12 or maybe
an 11 on it. This is not a prediction, but simply drawing symmetrical lines
around the market price.
© 2015 Monetary Metals
